1. Hired/Promoted Phil Jackson
This is easily the best move Krause ever made while running the Chicago Bulls. Just like Tex Winter, Jerry was a fan of Phil’s long before they became colleagues in Chicago. While working as a scout for the Baltimore Bullets, he urged them to take Jackson in the 1967 NBA Draft. The Bullets went a different direction, but Krause always kept in contact with Phil through his years as a player.
Phil began coaching soon after retirement, and sought NBA gigs for a long time with no success. During his playing years, he developed a reputation for being a member of the “counterculture” movement. Essentially, Phil was a hippie. That likely scared off NBA front offices. Instead, Phil spent the early and mid ’80s coaching in the CBA and the Puerto Rican league. But in 1987, Krause hired him to be an assistant to Doug Collins.
Despite Collins’ popularity among players and Chicago fans, Krause fired him and promoted Jackson to the head coach’s chair in 1989. Collins was a fine coach, and many questioned Krause’s decision. But Jackson needed just two seasons at the helm to get the Bulls from perennial Eastern Conference runners-up to NBA champions.
Phil, known as the “Zen Master”, had special relationships with each of his players. For many of Jackson’s players he was more than a coach. He was a father figure. He knew how to motivate them as individuals. He’d give them books to read that he thought would help them understand the game of basketball or their role on the team in new and better ways. Phil could control Jordan’s fierce demand for excellence, and his ego. He could control Pippen’s ego while getting him to embrace his role as the sidekick. He let Dennis be Dennis, on and off the court. He sent babysitters like Steve Kerr and Jud Buechler along when The Worm needed to go to Las Vegas between games to blow off some steam.
Jackson, despite his unique (and odd) way of doing things, was the perfect puppet master for a championship-caliber roster. He used the same techniques to lead the Los Angeles Lakers to five titles, harnessing the talents and egos of Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and more.
And nobody gave Phil a chance to run an NBA team until Krause. They had their differences. A large part of Jackson’s coaching strategy was creating an “us against the world” mentality in his players. Management (and Krause, specifically) fit into the “world” part of that saying.
Jordan, Jackson’s star pupil, famously refuted Krause’s notion that organizations win championships at his Hall of Fame induction. But in this case, unlike all others while he owned Chicago, Bulls fans can and should disagree with the GOAT. The players went out and played, and kudos to them for doing so. But if Krause didn’t put the right players together, or give them the right coaches to lead the way, there’s no way Jordan and the Bulls win six titles. Zip. Zero. No chance.
Jordan may have finally given his punching bag “Crumbs” some overdue respect at the news of his passing, but it’s not enough. Jerry Krause deserves the Hall. Anyone who disagrees is misinformed or wrongfully still bitter about a dynasty that had to end. Rather than wishing it lasted longer, Bulls fans should be thanking Krause for the fact that it happened. Phil may have been the zen master, but Krause was the man behind the curtain for all of that glorious ’90s magic in Chicago.
RIP, Jerry. And thanks for everything.
